


when the truth comes out (of my very own mouth)

by librarby



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Statement Fic, pouring one out for the sasha stans, set immediately after MAG 165
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:21:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24828250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/librarby/pseuds/librarby
Summary: Case ########-5 Addendum: A description of the human who was originally Sasha James. Recorded in Situ.[title from touch-tone telephone by lemon demon]
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Sasha James & Tim Stoker, Sasha James/Tim Stoker
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	when the truth comes out (of my very own mouth)

**Author's Note:**

> this one goes out to all the fellow sasha simps out there. i miss you every day ms james.....

[EXT: SOMEWHERE IN THE UK, POSSIBLY NEAR GLASGLOW]

[TAPE CLICKS ON.]

[FOOTSTEPS AGAINST CRUNCHY SOIL. THERE IS THE SOUND OF WIND IN THE BACKGROUND, CARRYING WHAT SOUND LIKE SCREAMS ALONG WITH IT.]

**MARTIN**

Jon?

**ARCHIVIST**

Yes?

**MARTIN**

Is Sasha…gone?

**ARCHIVIST**

Um, I, I think so. I mean, you saw me…You saw it die.

**MARTIN**

I don’t mean that, that _thing_ that stole her face. I mean the real one. ( _beat_ ) She’s not completely erased, is she? You have to be able to Know her, right?

**ARCHIVIST**

I…um…

[STATIC FADES INTO THE BACKGROUND FOR A FEW SECONDS AND THEN IT IS GONE.]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT’D)**

I can. It won’t be pretty, but I can do it.

[WE HEAR FABRIC SHIFTING AND SOMETHING DROP INTO THE DIRT: A BAG. MARTIN SIGHS AND WE HEAR ANOTHER SOUND, PRESUMABLY HIM SITTING ON THE GROUND.]

**MARTIN**

Let’s hear it then.

[MORE FABRIC RUSTLING AS ANOTHER BAG IS DROPPED TO THE GROUND. THE ARCHIVIST SITS DOWN TO JOIN MARTIN.]

**ARCHIVIST**

( _gentle concern_ ) Are you sure? It has the potential to be…upsetting.

**MARTIN**

Yes. Yes, I’m sure. ( _beat_ ) I want to know who she was. It’s—It’s not fair that no one remembers her.

**ARCHIVIST**

( _quiet_ ) Right.

[STATIC FILLS THE AIR AGAIN, LOUDER THIS TIME. IT DROWNS OUT BOTH THE WIND AND THE SCREAMS IT CARRIED AND NOW THERE IS ONLY THE ARCHIVIST’S VOICE.]

**ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT)**

Sasha James wore the same pair of round silver glasses that she got at age eight after complaining to her mother a few too many times that she couldn’t read the board at school.

Well, not the exact same pair. Her first had snapped after she stepped on them and her second had been damaged in an unfortunate biking accident. The optometrist tried to cajole her into buying a nicer, more expensive pair of glasses.

“How about these browlines?” He asked, opening up the glass case to show her. She just shook her head, insisting she wanted the same pair as last.

She couldn’t quite explain it, but there was something comforting to her about sameness. It was armor around her, draped like the long brown cardigan she wore every day in the winter. Despite the teasing she often got for “dressing like a grandma” (her brother’s words), she liked how she looked: put together, calm, responsible. She liked that someone could look at her and know exactly what kind of person she was.

Despite her efforts, Sasha never quite fit in. She was labeled nerdy at best and presumptuous at worst. Those comments twisted something deep inside her stomach, something angry that she wasn’t taken seriously. It was hard enough with her more _unique_ interests. Most pretense about her being a respectable adult went directly out the window the first time she began talking about her favorite haunted locations or the most recent cryptid she had researched. So, Sasha kept her mouth shut and let her big round glasses do the talking.

It was an odd kind of relief when she got the job at the Magnus Institute, London, a place that specialized in weird occurrences. Finally, she thought, a place where she would fit right in, a place where those around her were also excited by what goes bump in the night. A place where her excitement would be rewarded, instead of ridiculed.

Her coworkers in Artefact Storage were nice enough (they didn’t make fun of her, or at least not to her face), but the place was _creepy_. Lights never seemed to work, nobody looked one another in the eye, and those damned cobwebs showed up everywhere, no matter how many times she knocked them down. And don’t even get her started on Artefact analysis (she still couldn’t convince anyone that the clock she observed one afternoon had started spinning backwards and the whole rest of her workday had been dripping with a feeling of déjà vu). She transferred to Research after three months.

Research wasn’t perfect either. Nobody seemed interested in her latest two AM Wikipedia binge or the documentary she watched on demonic possession. These coworkers forced her out of one box (weird) and into another (boring). For the first time in her life, she almost wished someone would laugh at her, instead of dropping another file on her desk.

And, at the end of it all, Artefact Storage (or Research) was not where she wanted to be. It wasn’t watching weird objects and hoping they didn’t give you too many nightmares and it wasn’t going through document after document trying to find one single bit of information that you were certain you read at some point. It was helping people, investigating their stories, and learning new things. It was the joy of discovery and knowledge of the odd and mysterious. It was actually using what she knew to help others, to prove that all those facts in her head weren’t just there for fun.

The Archives was mostly shelves, much like Artefact Storage. But instead of boxes holding the arcane, the shelves were lined with boxes upon boxes of paper. Written statements by every person who had ever come to the Magnus Institute, recounting their story in hopes that the Institute could assist (she tried her best not to think about the fact that one match would be all it took for all that wonderful information to disappear. They really needed to digitize).

It was quite a shock when Gertrude disappeared. There was a formal announcement about the situation, describing how the Institute was attempting to find her but now conducting an internal search for a new Head Archivist.

Sasha had only met the woman once (she had been, well, _intense_ ) but still tried her best not to feel _too_ excited about the ordeal. There was a missing woman, after all. But the little voice in the back of her mind was certain that this was her big break. Head Archivist Sasha James. Finally.

As was her luck, though, Elias pulled up some seemingly random man from another section of Research. She pretended not to care, knowing that making a fuss at this point could mean the end of her career. Her coworkers assured her it was nothing wrong with her work or her resume, it must just be that Sims was who Elias wanted. She could practically hear her uni roommate’s voice in the back of her head, ranting about misogyny and the glass ceiling. She didn’t want to leave, but her resume remained open on her computer at home. Just in case.

Being transferred to the Archives felt like recognizing the face of an old friend only after he’s shot you. The man who Elias had picked, Jon, didn’t seem to have a single clue what he was doing, but at least had the mental capacity to pick someone who did. She was delighted when she found out Martin and Tim would be Assistants beside her. Both were coworkers from Research and just as confused as to why Jon wanted them.

(To be honest, so was Sasha. Martin was a wonderful guy but not exactly the best with deadlines. Or penmanship. Or being on time. Tim was…Well, Sasha kept her feelings about Tim Stoker locked in a box in the corner of her mind and refused to touch it.)

After arguing about who got the desk nearest to the vending machine (Tim), the three of them were Archival Assistants, not that any of them knew exactly what that meant. Jon didn’t seem to have a clue either, and Elias made it even worse by giving vague instructions to “Assist the Archivist in whatever he may need”. Unsure of what else to do, Sasha pushed up her glasses, picked up a random box of statements, and started typing.

Once they figured out that some of the statements had the odd quality of producing harsh static when recorded, Jon switched to recording the more troublesome accounts via an old tape recorder Martin discovered behind a file cabinet he accidentally knocked over. After each recording, one of the Assistants was tasked with following up with the statement giver. For the digitized statements, this was always rather easy: call a phone number, send an email, or type out a quick letter on the official Magnus Institute stationary. For the recorded statements, Sasha took to combing through cemetery records before attempting any normal forms of contact.

In Research, she never had much chance to work with both Tim and Martin, and she was surprised to find that she loved it. Martin was probably one of the nicest people she’d ever met, and Tim could always make her laugh, even after reading a particularly upsetting statement. She talked to Jon, too, but quickly learned he was awkward on good days and straight up rude on bad ones. It was difficult to gauge his mood, considering he always stared at her like she was interrupting something very important. Still, he seemed happy enough with her researching skills and that had to count for something. After all, it didn’t hurt anything to be nice to him.

(Maybe if he went missing too, she’d have a new job.)

(She was joking.)

(Mostly.)

It was probably Tim who started the Friday evening bar crawls, though even Sasha wasn’t sure when they began. It was nice to have people who liked her company so much that they wanted to spend time with her outside of a work setting. They didn’t even roll their eyes when Sasha ranted about the Mothman for the third time in one night. In fact, she could swear that Tim smiled more when she was raving about something across a sticky pub table than he did in a whole week at work (which was saying something, because Tim Stoker smiled more than any person Sasha had ever met).

They, or at least Sasha and Martin, tried to get Jon to join them, but he always seemed to have pressing work matters to attend to. She felt pretty bad, leaving him all alone in the shitty fluorescent light of the Archives, but he just kept saying “No, it’s fine. You all have fun.” or “Hm. I don’t typically drink, but thank you.” or “Sorry, I’m not a fan of crowds. You understand.”

(That didn’t stop Sasha from trying. Something about this stubborn man reminded her faintly of herself (though perhaps it was just the glasses). She was finally rewarded when they went out for Martin’s birthday and he somehow ranted about emulsifiers for nearly half an hour, practically making Martin’s whole week.)

Despite his callous nature, she could tell he really did care for them, even if he, as Tim put it, had a ‘total shit way of doing it’. After all, their photo at Pride successfully stayed up on the Archives bulletin board for over three weeks, even as Tim’s post-it notes (“How is an Archive like a hotel? It has lots of stories!”) were pulled down within the day.

She had an extra copy of the photo printed, slid carefully into a small blue frame that sat on her desk. It showed the three of them surrounded by color, Tim grinning over her shoulder with a bisexual flag around his shoulders; Martin with an arm linked in her own wearing a pink t-shirt and a pin reading “he/him”; and herself, eyes squeezed closed mid-laugh, the tiny rainbow flags stuck in her hair appearing to wave in the air despite the image being still. Several times now she’d caught herself staring at it, smiling to herself. Several other times, Tim had caught her looking and asked if there was something wrong with her glasses, “because that doesn’t look like work to me, Sash”. She stuck her tongue out at him in lieu of a response.

Sometimes it felt like Tim was the only one who could see the ‘Real’ Sasha, whoever that was at this point. He constantly teased her about how she seemed like a nerd but he ‘knew the truth’. She’d just laugh and push him, hand lingering for just a few moments more than was probably appropriate for work.

(She was drunk when she first admitted that he was the first person she’d been friends with in years. He seemed surprised at the notion but hooked an arm around her neck and told her the Archives wouldn’t be the same without her.)

The next few months in the Archives were normal, or as normal as they could be when you work for an Institute specializing in the supernatural. Jon would give them statements to follow up on, they’d find out that the statement giver had died or moved away or mysteriously disappeared, and Jon would roll his eyes and huff out something about there being a ‘perfectly reasonable explanation why Ms. Hudson may have been found dead in her flat covered in mold despite being dead less than two hours’. She would go out for drinks with Tim and Martin each Friday. On Monday she’d settle back into her desk, ready for whatever cybercrime Jon would ask her to do this week.

All she could do was focus on being Sasha, reliable old Sasha. She did follow ups in a timely manner, helped Martin go through box after box of Gertrude’s inane sorting system, and pushed her emotions down enough to say good afternoon to Elias during his occasional visits to their basement workplace. If she worked hard enough, she could forget how she was supposed to be Head Archivist, how _she_ was supposed to be reading those statements.

But she wasn’t, so she just pushed her glasses up on her nose and informed Jon that she was pretty sure it was pronounced calli-o-pe.

Then a mass of worms broke through the wall and Jon could no longer pretend like he didn’t believe the stories that walked through the Institute front door every day. Martin held him down as Sasha drove the corkscrew into their boss’ leg, digging out squirming grey worms that fell onto the dirty carpet with a dull splat. She screamed through the door with Martin at her side, hoping that Tim could hear her and turn back, even though she knew the glass was too thick.

Tim walked into the Archives, bending down to pick a tape recorder up off the ground. Behind him, silver worms began inching their way up the wall, forming a mass. Sasha knew they would be on him in seconds. She didn’t realize until Jon shouted at her that she had wrenched open the door and was running towards him.

“Tim, look out!”

Tim turned, that bright and shining grin still on his face, the one he wore when he had just told a joke that he thought was the funniest thing in the world. He always did look so happy.

On anyone else, Sasha may have thought that much happiness was fake, but the thing about Tim Stoker was that he was always finding happiness and joy in everything. He found jokes in the statements and humor in the requests of their ridiculous boss. He smiled and laughed and danced and sang because he was happy. He was every bit the man on the surface as he was deep down.

(Sasha James had no way of knowing that this was not true. She never knew the Tim Stoker inside. She never got the chance.)

“Sasha?” There was just enough time for her to see the smile slide from his face, replaced with confusion as she barreled into him, nearly knocking him flat. She wrapped her arms around his torso and yanked him out of the way of a cascade of grey worms.

The next minutes were a blur. Prentiss came barreling around the corner behind them, so Sasha shoved Tim in the direction of the shelves, hoping to hide him. The sound of squirming under her feet was a horrible background track to the feeling of Prentiss’ eyes on her—or what would have been her eyes, now just two hollow sockets filled with worms. She’d managed to get the monster’s attention away from Tim, but she still had nowhere to go.

Two doors. Behind her was the door to the room where Martin and Jon still waited, probably pressed up against the glass dictating her movements to Jon’s recorder. Going in there was not an option, that would endanger the both of them. To her right was the door that led upstairs. There was a sea of worms between her and it, but it was her best bet. In the background she could hear Tim shouting at her to run.

Keeping her eye on Prentiss, she reached out for the wall, feeling around for where she knew the fire alarm was. Sasha pulled and then she ran. She ran and did not stop until she reached Elias’ office, not caring to pay attention to the stares of confused evacuating Institute employees or the squishing sound of worms underfoot.

The door slammed open with a satisfying thud. Elias looked at her over his glasses but did not seem surprised to see her. Once he had calmed down her shouting, they created something of a plan: they would set off the fire suppression system manually, using the carbon dioxide in it to (hopefully) kill the worms and (hopefully) not kill her coworkers and boss. The two of them managed to make it down to the main level of the building before a swarm of worms separated them, forcing Sasha down a hallway with one door. With nowhere else to go, she stepped inside.

Sasha’s heart fell to her knees when she realized that she was in, of all places, Artefact Storage. She’d spent so long just trying to get out of that place, and now here it was, acting as her savior. The smallest part of her almost wished that she was back in the tiny extra room in the Archives, with Jon ranting into a tape recorder and Martin’s shaking hand holding hers.

Still, there were no worms here—well, none that she could see—so at least she was somewhat safe. But she still _hated_ this place. In every way that the basement Archives had become homey and warm to her, Artefact Storage was cold and distant and clinical. The shelves upon shelves of boxes loomed over her as she went deeper inside, searching for…something. A phone, a window, a door: anything that could help her or her friends get out.

She almost wished Michael would pop up, gesturing towards a bright yellow door.

Sasha turned a corner and immediately stopped in her tracks. On the floor a few feet in front of her was a tape recorder. The tape inside was already hard at work and she could hear it whirring over the distant sound of the fire alarm outside. How on earth did it get here, in Artefact Storage of all places?

Unsure of what else to do, she picked it up and started talking.

Knowing Jon, he’d listen to all these tapes, searching for clues or signs that he may have missed, something that would explain everything that had happened. Honestly, Sasha might kill him herself if he tried to play the skeptic card on this one. She spoke to Jon like he was next to her, explaining her interaction and separation with Elias and her current whereabouts, trying her hardest to help him flesh out a picture of this chaos.

(This accidentally got her onto a long-winded rant about how much she hated Artefact Storage, but she managed to quash it, not wanting to accidentally say something she wouldn’t want him to hear. (Like how maybe this wouldn’t have happened if _she_ was Head Archivist.))

She hadn’t realized she was walking _toward_ something until she nearly knocked her knees against it. She stopped, looking down to see an odd-looking table, one she distantly remembered Jon ranting about a while ago.

“Don’t really see what all the fuss is about.” She told the tape recorder, staring down at the pattern on top. It was strangely hypnotic, with subtle lines twisting into one another and guiding the eye towards the center. There was a square slot there, as though there was another piece that could slide in place. Sure, it was pretty, but it was just a table and she couldn’t quite understand why so many statement givers (and Jon) were so interested. “Just a basic optical illusion. Nothing special.”

The still of Artefact Storage made the movement in the corner of her vision that much more apparent. Sasha jerked her head to the side just in time to see a figure dart behind a pile of boxes, maybe thirty feet away. She paused in the middle of her sentence.

Once when she was young, Sasha fell off her bike, smashing her glasses. Glass and blood and dirt stained every inch of her clothes, leaving muddy footprints on the tile of her kitchen when she finally limped home. Her mother was beside herself, shouting that she needed to look where she was going, be more careful, why do you never think before you do these things, Sasha?

She got new glasses the following day. She was back on her bike the moment they got home from the optometrist, promising to be more aware.

Sasha’s mouth moved before she knew what she was saying. “Hello? I see you. Show yourself!” She called toward the figure. Perhaps this was someone who could help, someone like Michael. Or maybe it was something like Prentiss, and it needed to be stopped. Either way, she was going to figure this out. Jon was counting on her. They all were.

It moved out from behind a box and this was when she realized that what she was speaking to was not human. Whatever it was, it was thin, long, and barreling towards her.

She screamed and turned to run, but only got two steps before the thing caught up to her, piercing her back with those pointy limbs.

It hurt.

Of course it hurt. Being unmade, being ripped apart atom by atom and removed from the universe isn’t an easy process. She was scared and it _hurt_. The thing’s fingers reached into her like knives, slicing cleanly through her body. Trying again to scream, she quickly realized that she had no voice anymore (and she was fairly certain she also didn’t have a body). She wasn’t sure why she knew, but something told her that this thing was wrapping its spindly fingers around her fear, tugging at it. She yanked back. Somehow, giving it her fear felt like losing.

They say your life flashes before your eyes before you die, that you get to watch the images of your life pass by like a movie consolidated into a single instant. You see yourself grow, age, speeding to the moment you are in right now, before whatever comes after.

That is not what happened to Sasha James.

Sasha James was in the tunnels, watching Jonathan Sims clutch a tape recorder in one hand and a fire extinguisher in the other. Sasha James was inside the yellow door, following Tim Stoker and Martin Blackwood as they ran down a hallway that never seemed to end. Sasha James was in another part of the Institute, as the man she believed was Elias Bouchard made his way to the fire suppressant system, his eyes glowing as he checked up on his Archivist.

The images stung of failure, of her inability to save them. She’d tried so hard to be helpful, to be _useful_ but it was all for nothing. She wasn’t even sure if she dared to hope that they would succeed to save her, or if they even noticed she was gone.

(Tim would notice. Tim would notice, wouldn’t he?)

And finally, Sasha James sees herself. Well, she sees what is now Sasha James, the being who stole her body and her name and her friends and her life. “I see you.”

And then she is gone, only a memory that doesn’t exist anymore. The photo upstairs on her worm-infested desk melts until the only image is of Tim Stoker and Martin Blackwood, and it quickly relocates to Tim’s desk. Somewhere upstairs, glowing eyes halt for a moment and a small smile spreads over someone’s face.

“ _I see you_.” says Sasha James, voice clear into the tape recorder.

[THE STATIC SQUEAKS AND FADES, THE SOUNDS OF WIND AND TERRIFIED WAILS RUSHING IN TO REPLACE IT.]

**ARCHIVIST**

Well. ( _sigh_ ) There you go.

**MARTIN**

( _heh_ ) You weren’t lying about it being heavy, huh?

**ARCHIVIST**

No.

**MARTIN**

I…I don’t know if I liked that.

**ARCHIVIST**

I’m sorry.

**MARTIN**

No, it’s, it’s not your fault. It’s just hard to hear.

**ARCHIVIST**

Of course it’s hard to hear. It’s an amalgamation of all her fear, not just with the NotThem. She was scared of letting us down, of being—

**MARTIN**

( _strained_ ) Jon.

**ARCHIVIST**

( _quickly_ ) Ah. Sorry. ( _beat_ ) Sorry. It’s hard to turn off.

**MARTIN**

It’s okay. ( _long pause_ ) Are we the only ones to remember her, then?

**ARCHIVIST**

( _sigh_ ) Yes, in a way. I don’t know if there’s any non-digital photos of her, but that and the tapes are the only things we have left.

**MARTIN**

That’s awful. There has to be a way to, to bring her back! Or at least bring her memory back.

**ARCHIVIST**

I don’t think that’s possible, Martin. Especially not here.

**MARTIN**

Oh. ( _pause_ ) She was…I wish I could have known that Sasha. She sounded like, like she really cared. And…I think we cared about her too.

[THE ARCHIVIST MAKES A CONFIRMATORY SOUND.]

**MARTIN (CONT'D)**

Did she know? ( _beat, quieter_ ) That we cared?

[THERE IS A VERY SHORT BURST OF STATIC, ALMOST DROWNED OUT BY HOW QUICKLY THE ARCHIVIST SPEAKS.]

**ARCHIVIST**

( _no hesitation_ ) Yes. She did.

[SOMEONE TAKES A DEEP BREATH. WHEN MARTIN SPEAKS, HIS WORDS ARE CLEAR BUT WAVER EVER SO SLIGHTLY.]

**MARTIN**

Good. Good, I’m glad.

[TAPE CLICKS OFF.]

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments feed the ceaseless watcher! help me deal with the mortifying ordeal of being known.  
> leave requests down below or send a message to my tumblr (ravenships)!


End file.
